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Chronology: City Hall v. 110 Livingston Street

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August 1993: As a mayoral candidate, Rudolph W. Giuliani criticizes Mayor David N. Dinkins for his lack of control over the Board of Education. Mr. Dinkins had been frequently frustrated in attempts to steer educational policy because four of the seven board members tended to vote as a bloc against his wishes. The bloc ousted Schools Chancellor Joseph A. Fernandez earlier in the year over the objections of Mr. Dinkins.

January 1994: After taking office, Mr. Giuliani effectively controls the board through his influence with the socially conservative four-member majority, which includes Carol A. Gresser, who was elected president in 1993.

February: Picking up a battle that had been waged for more than a decade over who should control the board's budget, Mr. Giuliani and Schools Chancellor Ramon C. Cortines begin sparring over Mr. Giuliani's plan to cut school spending.

April: Mr. Cortines -- who had been selected in 1993 by Mr. Giuliani's majority -- announces that he will resign because of Mr. Giuliani's interference in the school system. Two days later, Mr. Cortines agrees to stay after he and the Mayor reach a compromise.

May: Mr. Giuliani preserves the conservative majority by selecting two representatives to replace Mr. Dinkins's appointees and endorsing Mrs. Gresser for re-election as president. His backing comes depite the fact that Mrs. Gresser had shown that her primary allegiance was to Mr. Cortines and not the Mayor.

July: Minutes after her re-election to a one-year term of president, Mrs. Gresser underlined her independence from Mr. Giuliani by jabbing at the Mayor's school budget cuts.

December: Mr. Giuliani begins a vitriolic public campaign intended to make Mr. Cortines so uncomfortable that he will withdraw his name from consideration for reappointment. Mrs. Gresser takes the unusual step of stating publicly that there is majority support on the board for Mr. Cortines.

February 1995: Mr. Giuliani asks the state legislature to give him sweeping powers to dictate how the board spends its money.

May: Mr. Giuliani demands that Mr. Cortines and the Board of Education hand over school security to the Police Department. Mr. Cortines and the board resist.

June: Mr. Cortines, the city's sixth chancellor in 11 years, resigns, saying he feels he is hurting the system by staying on during the bitter feud. Mr. Giuliani insists he has the right of approval over a successor, but Mrs. Gresser quickly dismisses the idea.

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September: Mr. Giuliani's first choice for chancellor, Richard Ravitch, a former director of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, withdraws from consideration.

Mrs. Gresser opposes his next choice, Leon M. Goldstein, the president of Kingsborough Community College in Brooklyn, questioning his close political ties to Brooklyn Democrats and his conflicting answers about his age, marriages and health.

September: Mr. Goldstein abruptly withdraws. And in what seems at first like one of the most embarrassing defeats of Mr. Giuliani's administration, the board decides to select Daniel A. Domenech, the Superintendent of Schools for western Suffolk County, as chancellor.

October: In a dramatic reversal after Mr. Giuliani applied intense political pressure, the board votes to reopen its search for a new chancellor, spurning Mr. Domenech. William C. Thompson Jr., the board member from Brooklyn joins the Mayor's two appointees in reopening the search.

October: With a hard-won blessing from Mr. Giuliani, the board decides to offer the chancellor's job to Dr. Rudy Crew, the Superintendent of Schools in Tacoma, Wash. April 1996: The Mayor and Dr. Crew forge a close relationship, but they still disagree in significant ways on how many bureaucrats are needed to run the school system.

June: Dr. Crew says in an interview that there has been friction between him and Mrs. Gresser and that it has slowed, but not impeded, his efforts to change the nation's largest school system.

July: Mrs. Gresser works hard to mend fences with Mr. Giuliani. After the Mayor and City Council agree on how the board would spend $1.4 billion for school renovations, Mrs. Gresser issues two written statements in five days praising the Mayor's leadership.

July 7: Two days before the board is to vote on a president, the Giuliani administration raises the possibility that the Mayor might seek to oust Mrs. Gresser from the job, in favor of Mr. Thompson, the Brooklyn representative. Randy Kennedy

A version of this chronology appears in print on July 9, 1996, on Page B00005 of the National edition with the headline: Chronology: City Hall v. 110 Livingston Street. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe